Take The Reliance Building, Please

Nobody said it would be easy finding a private developer to buy and restore the landmark Reliance Building at the southwest corner of State and Washington Streets.

That's why the city put off the task until late in its North Loop project, the slow-moving, multiblock downtown urban renewal effort now crawling into its 15th year.

For all of its architectural significance, the Reliance, with its small floor plans and oversize, single-pane windows, does not make economic sense as a modern office building. And that is ironic, because the steel skeleton and glassy walls of this century-old classic presaged the modern office building by more than 50 years.

As official city landmarks go, the Reliance stands among the very best. Despite years of neglect, the building is far more significant, both architecturally and historically, than someplace like the non-landmark interior of the Arts Club on North Michigan Avenue, where preservationists have been cheapening their cause of late with an 11th-hour bid to avert demolition.

So the city was right to condemn and purchase the Reliance earlier this year from owners who had allowed it to fall into disrepair. And as hard as it may be for some aldermen to swallow, the Daley administration is acting prudently in seeking $6.4 million to restore and stabilize the building's terra-cotta exterior against further erosion.

Skeptical council members can console themselves with the fact that the rehab funds will come from property tax growth inside the North Loop urban renewal district, not from general city revenues.

But those same council members surely are right about one thing: the city does not belong in the downtown commercial real estate business. Every effort should be made to find a private buyer for the Reliance, even if it means selling the property at a substantial discount, and even if the city has to lease a couple of the building's 15 floors to make a deal fly.

That buyer may turn out to be the Baldwin Development Co., which the city has chosen to oversee the exterior restoration. Baldwin did a fine job restoring the landmark Rookery Building on LaSalle Street, but so far the company hasn't been able to raise the $10 million or more it will take to restore the interior of the Reliance and market it foor-by-floor to prospective tenants.

Another possibility is the not-for-profit sector.

Surely there must be a be deep-pocketed foundation or civic group in Chicago that would like to be known as the outfit that saved the Reliance Building . . . and got City Hall off the hook.